Category: Random

Whew, it has been a day and then some….so for the 5 people that have read my blog:

There have been major changes as to why I haven’t updated this blog in a good while. The first being, I am currently about to start my third year of dental school.

So, here is the back story. 2 years ago, I got an interview with Howard University College of Dentistry. I got in! That summer I ended up leaving my home state of Colorado for the big adventure in Washington, DC. I found an apartment and left behind the state I grew up in (and love) and moved. The move itself was pretty smooth thanks to my mom being on top of life and making sure I was settled in before going back to CO.

I initially was excited before I quickly realized DC is not CO. I am not a city girl and I am only kidding myself into thinking that I am. I love sunshine and outdoors. I love smiling at strangers and saying hi. I love knowing that everyone around me is willing to help I just have to ask. None of which can be found in DC. Now don’t get me wrong, there are aspects about DC that I also enjoy….it’s just not home. Home is Colorado. So, that transition was rough.

Then there was change from beauty products to school. I found I had less time for my passion of make up because I had to focus on just getting by in school. So there was that. My blog and everything else got tossed to the side as I turned all of my time and energy on the adventure ahead. It was unfortunate that my hobby and interest got lost in my school. But I figured it was a good trade off for my dream career. But it made me think…now that I had time…what really drove me…

So in order to keep myself sane…and entertained. I decided to revamp my blog. I decided to make it into something different and really try to put effort into keeping up with it. I figured it would be best to start writing about things that pertain to me now rather than me 2 years ago. I don’t have the time to dedicate to trying and reviewing ad noting what I love and don’t love about beauty products. I may still occasionally post a review (since I have recently discovered a new facial routine that really has settled my breaking out all the time due to stress skin.) But I wanted to change my blog into more of a organization/daily nuggets kind of blog. Keep it light and not so demanding as a beauty blog (cause let’s be honest….my beauty blog was going no where.)

I think my first new entry will be school related (ugh) about how I keep my school notes/etc organized to ensure my success. Hopefully someone out there finds it useful.

So as I mentioned before, I am preparing to decide my future. In preparing for my future, I have come across a few little tips that help me focus and study and get the most out of my studying. I hope this helps some of you who may still be in school, are taking a test, or just learning in general to look at yourself and start to understand how you learn best.

The first things I learned were:

–I completely and utterly lack the ability to multitask. I cannot be someone who has the TV going on in the background, Facebook casually opened, or others around me talking and study at the same time. I just get too distracted too easily and I can’t study or retain any information from that study session.

–I know how I learn best: For me, I remember and retain information(and integrated it into my schema) best when I am able to listen to someone say it and write it down while I’m listening. This is why lectures really work well for me. I don’t do well with “practicing” concepts if I don’t have time to simply hear someone explain it and for me to write it down. I am an auditory learner but only when I can also write it down. Visuals don’t really help me cause I can’t recall visuals like some others can. I only know it if I remember writing it (in tandem with someone saying it to me…I can’t stress that enough.) This is why taking notes from a book helps me…but not as much as taking notes during a lecture.

–Take BREAKS! This is the most important thing and the hardest thing for me because I have a very odd way of focusing. I tend to hyper focus for HOURS at a time. I mean completely focused, I can’t take in anything going on around me because I am so focused on what is before me. I feel like once I get in the “zone” as my family calls it I just want to keep on studying. The side effects of being a creature of habit fur sure. But as many of you already know, most people remember things at the beginning and end the best-I’m not exception. Therefore, by taking breaks I am able to have more beginning and ends to remember.

–Have a bottle of water near by. One of the biggest distractions for me is that I like to snack while studying. It’s an easy way to distract myself because…well my snacks eventually run out and I go search for more. So I switched to having a bottle of water with me so that I can always just go re-fill it and no worries there.

–A white board. I have a giant white board I use for writing up key concepts and points that I need to remember. Using the colors and writing it after writing it in my notes really helps me see things I didn’t see just on paper. Plus, using the colorful markers are just fun and anything that makes studying fun is a win.

These are just 5 quick little things I do to make sure when I sit down to focus-I get the most out of it. I hope this helped you all a little bit. Please, if you have any tips leave a comment. I am always looking for ways to improve how I study!

Today will be a bit different from the beauty topics I usually write about. Lately, I have been buying a lot of office supplies (which isn’t that surprising because I love office supplies.)

But with my new internship, I had to get a few new notebooks (one for my licensing classes and one for just little notes to myself…kind of like a planner.) So I was looking at all the different notebooks, but none of them really stuck out for me. I don’t particularly enjoy spiral notebooks and just use them because they also tend to be the cheapest. I like bound notebooks, if they are bound well. Some composition notebooks anger me because they don’t open enough for me to write comfortably in them. Weird I know. I’m so picky.

So I kept browsing and somehow ended up in Barnes and Noble. I feel like my entire life is spent inside that store. I am slightly secretly in love with B&N. I think it’s just because i like sitting amongst books…cause like I’ve said before I’m slightly creepy. I also think it’s better than the library because for some reason the library near me is always full of kids…so I can’t focus as well because whenever I find a quiet place to study, the middle school kids will always pop up and start their loud conversations at a table next to me. So B&N it is.

While perusing the shelves, I noticed the moleskin notebooks. Normally, I just overlook these but I noticed one small sleek looking black notebook and decided it would be good for keep track and recording all my thoughts/ to do’s/ and notes for juggling my DATs, Dental school Applications, Law School Applications, and LSAT stuff. I wanted to keep it specific to this stuff just because I wanted one place I can go to record everything and have it there for me when I need to look something up. (Like say a score on a practice test.)

The notebook was bound in plastic and had a little cardboard thing around it tell me if it was lined or not, how many pages, what was inside, and the cost. The first thing I must admit is these notebooks are not cheap…they are way more than the 70 cent mead notebooks I use to get. My first thought when I opened up the notebook was that it was VERY WELL made. It really felt sturdy, the pages were not too thin (or too thick…I hate thick pages I feel like I’m getting ripped off,) the lines were college ruled (again I hate wide ruled notebooks cause I have small handwriting,) the binding was nice and tight but also allowed me to open the notebook the entire way for easy of writing, the page marker did not get in the way, and it stayed shut when I closed it. I thought it was worth every penny I paid for it.

The First Moleskin notebook I picked up

Well after my first experience with this notebook, I knew I was in love. The best parts about the moleskin notebooks were the size selection and the color selection. As most of my readers and friends know, I love the color yellow. I also love things that come in numerous colors. The moleskin notebooks come in an array of sizes ranging from small pocket notebooks to larger composition notebooks to even graph notebooks. The color range is basically the rainbow and then some. They come in packs of 2. Usually, they will be the same color in varying shades.

I ended up picking 4 notebooks. The first two were smaller and more meant for quick notes while I’m out or during the day for my internship. I picked my favorite color yellow and it came with an orange notebook as well. I also ended up getting 2 larger composition notebooks for my internship in varying shades of green.

The Orange and Yellow “planner” notebooks I boughtGreen composition notebooks!

Overall, I think these notebooks will quickly become my favorite office supplies. They have the ability to join the Gelly Roll pens exclusive use items. Yes, I will only use Gelly roll pens to write because I think they write very well and for some reason I feel my handwriting looks more steady using Gelly Roll pens compared to everything else.

I think the merging of Moleskin notebooks, Gelly Roll pens, and Tul mechanical pencils will become the center of my office supply addiction.

I’m sorry for not posting for quite some time. I’ve been busy. But I wanted to do an update entry just to catch everyone up on what I’ve been doing.

Well I am going to apply (or re-apply) to dental school. I guess if at first you don’t succeed try and try again right? I am also studying my butt off to ensure I get a good score on m DATs. Plus, with the boyfriend in Physical Therapy School-I have all the time to focus and then eat dinner with him.

Next, since I now have a year off..I took up an internship with Graland Country Day School. I will be in an Alternative Licensing Program as a kindergarten teacher. Yup, from dentistry to teaching. While it sounds like a leap, I think it will be a good experience. Something completely different from college and to be on the other side of teaching will be interesting. Hopefully, no one pees on me. Yes, that is my greatest concern about teaching right now…being pee’d on. I am mature.

Also, during this time, I will be enrolled in the Education and Human Development Master’s Program. This is also linked to my internship/licensing program. I will have to write 2 extra papers on top of the hours I already have to take in classes for my licenses to teach little children. It’s probably not that much more work….But..(there’s always a but isn’t there?)

But…I will also be applying to law school. I can’t make up my mind. I am currently looking into different law schools that I may want to attend. I am finishing up my second bachelor’s in English Writing (I hold another BS in Biology.) I took a couple pre-law classes at my university (and even joined the Pre-Law Society) and learned more about it. I think that it’s a very interesting career and the more I learn about it the more enraptured I become. It’s really weird for me to be into law because I come from a long line of dentists and I grew up simply thinking I would join them. I thought healthcare was the only career option out there for me. It took me 25 long years, but I am finally beginning to realize what my family tells me is a good career doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good career for me.

I think it’s a hard decision, but right now I don’t want to force myself to pick simply because I don’t know which one I would want to pick. The three I’ve decided to explore are all careers I think would be good for me and would be both fulfilling and interesting. I just think right now I will follow all three until they diverge to the point where I am forced to pick.

Aside from a bunch of schooling stuff, I’ve still been as sickly sweet with my boyfriend as ever. We recently celebrated our one year anniversary. I will be doing a separate post on what he got me. It’s pretty neat and really thoughtful of him. It makes me happy that I’m with him. We also are trying to work out times to see each other because this summer he is busy with his first semester of PT school. I also am trying to squeeze in as much couple time as possible before I start this internship in August…and then we’ll barely have time for each other.

Aside from the relationship, I’ve also been focusing on keeping two very rambunctious pups busy. With the summer heat, it’s getting harder and harder to keep them cool and hydrated when all they want to do is run around outside in 95 degree weather. I love that they basically wear themselves out and are dead asleep by 9PM. But I’m worried they might get heat stroke or heat exhaustion because they barely want to stop to drink water. Fretting owner I know…but they’re my babies.

With the scorching heat here, there have also been numerous wild fires riddling my state. I think the count is up to 7 now. It breaks my heart and I hope that everyone is safe and that relief comes soon. Normally we get some decent rainfall during June, but with this year being the warmest in 75 years it’s hard to keep up hope. But I’m still going to hope and send positive thoughts in that direction.

But enough with the downing news. On a completely different note, I recently joined Luuux. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, it’s basically a networking site where you post things (about fashion, make up, food, cars, anything really) to earn Luuux dollars. You can trade these dollars in for real items (such as gift cards, ugg boots, and even LV bags.) I thought it would be interesting to try and maybe be a bit like Pinterest. Another site I’ve been obsessed with. I am not sure if I’ll link it to this blog yet. Maybe once I get more comfortable. So if you’re on there, let me know! Leave a comment with your username and I’ll definitely try adding you or following you.

Again, I’m sorry for the ridiculously long delay in updates. I’ll try to work on it so that I won’t ignore this blog for so long again.

Sorry this post is coming up so randomly and late. I decided to do another tag (these things are so easy and quick to put up.) The tag is 50 things I’ve Done tag. My list probably isn’t as exciting as others, but I thought it would be fun to do anyways.

1. I have accidentally punched my brother in the face
2. I have pretended not to speak English to get out of talking to telemarketers
3. I have lied about my age to get out of being harassed during election time
4. I have been around the world in 100 days
5. I have hoarded boxes. You never know when you’ll need a box.
6. Every time I go snowboarding, I have been knocked over by an out of control skier from behind.
7. I never learned my right and left, so I have always write my signature in the air to figure out which is which.
8. I have had 8 teeth removed. (apparently my teeth are too big for my mouth….that sounded dirty)
9. I rode a jet ski without knowing how to swim.
10. I have fed sting rays
11. I have sang “Linh is so great” in public
12. I have congratulated myself in public cause no one else would
13. I have taken pictures of my boyfriend only when he’s sleeping. (The only awake picture of him I have was given to me…yes I am that creepy.)
14. I have been petted by a crossing dressing Indian man on a train asking for money
15. I have seen both the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids in Egypt at Sunrise
16. I have tried dinosaur egg (an dessert dish in India.)
17. I have tried karate, figure skating, gymnastics, soccer, yoga, volleyball, and muay thai.
18. I have tried baby powder to see if it tasted like powdered sugar
19. I have woken my brother up by tapping his shoulder…with my toes.
20. I have never learned how to blow dry my hair with a brush.
21. I have seen a howler monkey almost pee on someone’s head.
22. I have climbed an active volcano.
23. I make strange noises to express my happiness.
24. I have read the entire Harry Potter Series in 2 days.
25. It takes me a full 2 minutes to properly pronounce conscience.
26. I buy kids meals for the toys for myself.
27. I memorized the rejection hotline phone number
28. I have called someone by the wrong name.
29. I have mistaken someone for my friend and scared them.
30. My friends mistake other people for me a lot.
31. I have woken up on the ground and my dog on my bed.
32. I don’t find it weird to spend 100 dollars on my dog when I won’t spend 30 dollars on myself.
33. I enjoy watching my dogs eat….I am creepy.
34. I have zip lined above the rainforest canopy.
35. The first time a boy ever asked me out, I squeeked no and ran away.
36. I was completely ignored by the first boy I ever liked (karma comes back in very cruel ways.)
37. I have had food poisoning 3 times in my life, two of those times this year.
38. I am a late bloomer. I didn’t reach puberty until late high school.
39. The best compliment I have ever received is from a gay guy about how perfectly shaped my chest is.
40. I have spent an entire day switching between the travel channel and the food network.
41. I have spent an entire walking by my second cousin without even realizing it.
42. I have 13 cousins….and only one of them is female.
43. I use to be in an abusive relationship. He was verbally abusive climbing towards physical.
44. I have passed up an evening out clubbing for a movie night with brother at home without any regrets.
45. I have jumped off the roof of my house with an umbrella trying to be Mary Poppins
46. I have cussed out my best friend’s ex cause he was a worthless human being.
47. My favorite activity has always been making my brother try the weirdest things I can find for him to eat. Like Bacon flavored soda.
48. I have drank coffee at 8 pm and was in bed by 11.
49. I have napped from 4PM to 8 PM, woke up and brushed by teeth, and went back to bed.
50. I have swam in water so clear I could see the fish swimming around my ankles.

Whew! That was harder than I thought it would be. Hopefully you found some amusement out of it! 🙂 I hope to see you all again soon.

So, I wanted to get right into it. I finally jumped on the Make Up Forever HD bandwagon and bought it. I bought the color 127, which was a lucky guess and a perfect match for my skin tone. I ordered the foundation online from Sephora since I didn’t want to make the drive to the mall to look at it in person. I was pleasantly surprised that it was the right color. I usually guess either too light or too dark on concealers and foundations. I must be learning!!

I decided to try this particular foundation because it didn’t have any SPF in it. I went to a big family wedding in May where there will be a lot of pictures. So I didn’t want a white cast in those pictures. This pushed me to find a foundation that would give me good coverage without the light reflection. I wanted to try it early because I can always buy it in a darker color for summer; but I need time to try different application techniques to see which one gives me the best finish.

My initial thoughts when I applied it with a stippling brush was “amazing!!” I really liked the finish and the coverage it gave me. I felt it gave me medium coverage. The perfect amount for my skin. I applied it at 9 am and checked how it looked again at 6 PM and it looked almost the same. It faded a bit around my nose but all foundations do that to me. I set it with MAC mineralized skinfinish natural in medium dark. I really love the overall finish of these two products combined.

But the true test of how the foundation would hold up came when I had to wear it in NY. The difference is in CO, it is DRY. Here when we reach 20% humidity it’s humid to us. So when I went to NY, I wanted to see how it would hold up without touch ups, in humidity, with me walking my butt all over NYC. The end result was that-it held up pretty well. I put on a very light application of the foundation. Set it and literally just forgot about it until the end of the day. I didn’t take to many pictures around NY, but I will include the few I did.

Also for the wedding, there were 2 professional photographers that were snapping shots left and right. I included one of those pictures (that came back early) to show how well this foundation looked in pictures. I really liked it because it looked very natural on me. In the last picture, I am the one in the red dress. The beautiful lady in the gold dress is my cousin (who is lucky enough not to need to make up!)

With Lee on the Ferris Wheel in Toys ‘R Us in Times SquareBeing Traumatized by Elmo! At least my make up is perfect.At my Uncle’s Wedding with my cousin (in the gold), my other cousin (the best man), Me, and my brother

If you’ve had any experience with this foundation please let me know. Did you like it? Hate it? In between?

Today I wanted to write about something that has really been bothering me for a while.

So, a YouTube personality I enjoy watching had put up a video about Second chances. In the video, he berated the numerous females that give their significant other a “second chance” but continually hold the wrong doing (usually cheating) against their significant other. He says in a second chance it should be a clean slate and let the past stay in the past. That women shouldn’t bring up the event that caused the need for a second a chance.

I have to say this is total crap. Utter crap. Don’t get me wrong, I still adore this person and watch his videos all the time. But I think this is the single dumbest thing he has ever posted in a video. In my opinion, giving someone a second chance does not automatically erase what they did. If I love someone, I would never cheat on him. If I respect someone, I would never cheat on him. If I cared at all for someone and wanted him in my life, I would not cheat on him. Cheating in itself is wrong. You cannot claim, “oh I love you” after smearing that person with dirt and spitting on his/her face by betraying his/her trust in you to sleep with someone else (Or kiss or flirt or whatever it is you deem cheating.)

But that being said, if I do get cheated on I will feel pain. Lots of pain. From the betrayal, from the feeling of not being good enough, from my own insecurities going haywire in my head. But if I can look past all this and still believe I can be with this person…well there is no way in hell I can start from a clean slate. I can SAY it, but that isn’t the case. The past cannot be undone and because of that, I cannot change my emotions or the scars it will eventually leave. My mentality and views of relationships will permanently shift (maybe not extremes but it will shift slightly.) I cannot simply repress the pain and put on a smile because “hey I gave this person a second chance…a chance to start over.” No. There is no starting over (PS-I desperately want to cuss up a storm right now…so please excuse any slip ups.) A second chance is not starting from scratch all over again, blindly giving your trust to someone who obviously didn’t and still doesn’t deserve it.

In my eyes, a second chance is the chance to prove you deserve to be trusted. If you fucking cheat on someone, expect to wallow in mud before rising to even ground again. You dug yourself into a pretty deep hole, it will take time to climb out. Don’t expect it to be easy, don’t expect it to be quick, and damn don’t expect any help from the person you betrayed. He/She has already given you a HUGE opportunity by even letting you climb out of the hole you dug yourself into. If I give a guy who cheated on me a second chance, I am not going to be nice. I am not going to just “trust him” and start over. I didn’t trust him when we first started dating, he had to gain my trust. Now he has to gain it back again, this time without the benefit of doubt. Every move he makes will be scrutinized by me. Every word he says will be taken with a grain of salt. Every thing he tells me will be considered a lie until shown otherwise. Hell, he lied to my face before-what is going to stop him from doing it again?

If he can’t handle this, the door is easy to find. I wasn’t the one that messed up. So, I won’t feel bad for not trusting him. If he thinks I’m going overboard he should have thought about that before he messed around behind my back. I honestly don’t care what his excuse for his actions are-nothing will change the fact that he thought about what could happen if he got caught, processed it, and decided eff it he’ll screw around anyways. If he can put that much thought into the consequences, then he can deal with them when it comes up. And if those consequences include me being paranoid, well he better learn to deal with that if he “truly loves me.” (But then again true love wouldn’t cheat in the first place right? Now I’m just arguing in circles…Haha.)

Woo…I feel better. Thank you for listening to my rant.

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful one spent surrounded by people you love. I love you all!